Note to Self:

Don't lose the hope you had as young person.

Love Smithers

Earlier this month, I visited my grandparents in Pensacola, Florida. On the last day of my trip, my Granny met me at the door saying something along the lines of she had something important to share with me. She took me by the hand, led me to her writing desk pushed up to the broad window of the sunlit living room and gave me an email. In October of my senior year, I graduated in December, I had written an email to my mom and sister (who attended the same school), partly as catharsis and partly as appreciation and my mother had printed and mailed it to my Granny. Below is a copy of the email but first a few notes to make sense of it all.

*As a student at Virginia Tech, I volunteered with the YMCA. During my last semester, I worked with Somalian refugees who had been relocated to Blacksburg due to civil war in Somalia. I also worked in an afterschool program at a local mobile home community.

* I love, love, love each and every one of my sorority sisters. Sure, there were some days where all of us would be petty, that's called being human, but I have faith that for the majority of us, each day we wake with the hope in our hearts that we can do better. When I wrote the email, I was young and tended to see many issues as only black or only white when really, when it comes to working with humans, it is always gray. As a human, we are responsible for trying to see the grey; that other side and the good in it.

* Dr. Virginia Fowler was my senior seminar advisor while I was in school. I took a few classes with her when I was in school and I will forever appreciate her stretching my mind and making my boundaries more elastic.

* The soul mate that I was surely talking about is LJ, one of my very close friends. She remains, to this day, someone who I feel unconditionally linked to her soul and her enthusiasm for life.

*Finally, I am not putting this out there to be like "dang, I was AWESOME!" I am putting it out there because I think I so often can forget that I can learn from myself because I can think and I am creative. Re-visiting things that struck someone else or yourself helps you to reconnect with your hopeful self. Save, write down, draw, take pictures of the things that MOVE you in life.

And without further ado...

To: Linda Clouser; Jenny Smith

Sugject: Re:hello

the two greatest loves of my life...

yes, I know Jenny is only 5 minutes away but I thought you would want to hear about it all too so why not just write back to both. Life for me is going pretty well. I can't help but feel this intense amount of anxiety as I come to the edge of what I have always known and seen as life. It seems that at these moments when you are all about making decisions for yourself, whoever is in charge throws a couple of curve balls your way.

I feel that more than ever I am connected to the people that I am helping through the YMCA. I have been able to meet a group of adults that have dedicated their lives to the happiness of others and seen children with smiles bright enough to show up the Rockefeller Christmas tree. But at the same time, I have experienced a great amount of sadness. In the presence of the Somalians, I feel often times out of place and not wanted because I have used my "dumb American" card and not taken the time to learn but the smallest details of their culture and not a word of their language. I am frustrated because I know that I am better than that. I know that it would only have taken me an extra two hours to change and play a more embracing role as a volunteer. At the trailer park, I am so frustrated by watching and experiencing the amount of hurt one human is willing to inflict upon the other. I am frustrated by the lack of education in our public schools about life: the bare essentials- health, sex ed., self esteem, manners. And then I find myself coming to a group of women that are so lucky to be here. They are in school, have friends, are part of a good organization, etc. and yet they still lack the respect for themselves. It has gotten to the point where I just want to scream at all of the gossip and tell them all how lucky they are. We have each other and that is more than most people can say for themselves.

It has been a time of growing and discovering who I am and where I would like to fit in. I find that maybe all of the friends I have made are not the most sincere, that people stop caring about your feelings if they get the personal satisfaction of talking about you and I hate every one of these discoveries because it makes me understand that often times I have been this person. So many times, I have sat on the sideline, talked about the game but never gone in to make a change. It is like Gandhi said, it is not that we do not believe we have the power to change something, it is that we are afraid of being powerful beyond our wildest beliefs. I hope that I have made a difference in the four years that I have spent here. And this is not a pessimistic email saying I haven't done anything or do not have good friends but it hurts when all of it doesn't play out the way you have expected. I have found my soul mate* (possibly mates) at college and I will never ask for more. I have had the privilege of knowing people that will make this world a better place and that I will call my friends forever but this change of life, change of pace has awoken me to the idea that I must be happy with the relationships that I can take with me and learn from the ones that I don't. I look forward to what the world has to offer and hope to spend the coming years of my life in the game rather than on the sideline.

School is going pretty well. I am suffering a huge writer's block (bet you couldn't tell by this email) that my senior seminar professor and I have decided is a manifestation of the anxiety of change/ the real world into what I have always considered my weakest point (my writing). I have spent hours in her office exploring what it means to be human and I can say that with the help of the likes of Morrison and Eliot, there has been some progress made. Each day, I realize once again how lucky I am to have been raised by a relentlessly dedicated and selfless mother and to have a best friend grow up next to me. I know there are times when you both must want to strangle me but I want you to know how thankful I am to have you all in my life. Most people don't get to meet their two greatest heroes so early. Thank you for teaching me what it means to be a woman, a member of the human race and most of all a lover of the hearts that come my way. Jenny, I also thank you for knocking me around a bit when I need it. You all may never understand it and I now a bunch of words sent over an impersonal email won't cut it but you are my angels, my lights and most of all my best friends.

iloveyou

Sprigger T the Phone Thief

Months ago, I had my typical cohort of children playing games and coloring on my living room floor. Since I moved into my own place, my afternoons have been blessed with the smiles and laughter of my neighborhood children. On this particular day, Dexroy Springer, one of my grade 5 students, was walking home from the playing field, saw children at my house and asked if he could join in. I have a strict policy of “Everyone’s Welcomed” so I invited him in. He made a place for himself on the floor and joined the exciting round of Candyland. All of us that grew up playing this game can surely remember just how exciting it can be. I left the living room for a total of two minutes to do something in another room and all of the sudden, my neighbors, Sariyah and Jeziah, are rushing towards me with “Miss! Miss! Miss! Sprigger T thiefed your phone!” Well hot damn, I have known to be aware of thieves in St. Vincent but I didn’t expect it to be in broad daylight by one of my students. I rushed out of the house to shout him but he had taken off down the road at lightning speed with my phone in tow.

At this point, I am beginning to feel a bit panicky. I use my phone a lot down here—not only to chat but also as a number keeper and way to coordinate errands, rides, etc. Also, you can probably already guess this but the Peace Corps salary doesn’t leave much wiggle room for a candy bar ($3 EC) at the end of the month, let alone a new phone ($200 EC). To top it off, I have a phone that you use and then pay for at the end of the month. Most people here have phones that you buy credit on, “top up,” so if you don’t have money then you don’t have a way to call out (novel idea!). My phone can actually top up other’s phones and it is added to my bill. Again, the more I thought about it, the more fear grew in my heart, not only had he taken my phone but he was walking around with endless credit for anyone who was smart enough to figure it out. The phone had been providing the illusion of control in a world and experience where everything seems so beyond my control and here it was, stolen right out of my house by a nine year old that weights no more than fifty pounds that I welcomed through the front door. I would have bet a thousand dollars to say that the first person to rob me would have been a scary man, at least six feet tall and weighing in at two hundred and fifty pounds. Funny how life can take your expectations and turn them on their heads.

In typical Vincy fashion, I headed out to the street, kids following at my heels and anxiously told my neighbors that my phone had just been thiefed by Dexroy. “Sprigger T?” said my neighbor Elvia, “I think he lives in Pashar Hill (a neighborhood in Layou). Let’s go look! We will find him.” So we set off through Layou, asking everyone if they had seen him pass and if they knew where he lived. Layou is not a big town so every person we met brought us closer to our target. Finally, three dark alleys, two barking dogs and one wrong turn later we arrived at Dexroy Springer’s house, a small 2 room clapboard home dangerously balanced on cinder blocks, a small light at the end of a dark walkway. Elvia called out and a woman came towards us to hear the explanation of how this Layou outsider had just had her phone stolen by Dexroy. His grandmother quietly explained that he had just arrived home a few minutes earlier but she had not seen a phone. In my head, I am screaming at the top of my lungs, just another twist in this Peace Corps path that I am already struggling along. Suddenly, I see a small light coming from around the corner and Elvia notices it too. It is Dexroy, huddled in the corner of the yard, desperate to finish the last game he may ever play of Digicel football (soccer on the phone). His grandmother calls him, he rushes into the house and hides in fear, she heads in after him. As mad as I am, I still don’t want him to be physically punished so I anxiously cross my fingers, hoping for a peaceful reunion with my Digicel gold. After about two minutes, his grandmother returns to the path with phone in hand. She places it in my palm and without another word, turns back to the house. Elvia and I head back up the hill to our block. As we are walking, I look at her and say “Thank you and could you please explain why you call Dexroy Sprigger T?” She looks at me, curiously, “You know, spaghetti, like the noodles? We call him Spaghetti because he is skinny like a noodle.” I laugh out loud, partly with relief and partly in gratefulness to whatever God is watching over this and smiling. Originally, I would have ended the story here with some anecdote about how it is great to live in a small community where everyone is willing to join together to help you get through the struggles but that would be selling the whole situation short. Gyal, it turns out that the word spaghetti was not the only thing at risk of getting lost in translation.

Just last week, Dexroy’s grandmother shows up during lunch at the school, ready to rip him a new one because he has gone and spent his $1EC lunch money on cookies during break time (DUH!! Who wouldn’t choose delicious crème filled sandwiches over rice and chicken) and has been telling her that the school is refusing to give him food.. The ever gracious teacher, who runs the feeding program, gently explains to her that this is all part of the process of growing up, deciding how and where to spend money. Dexroy’s grandmother accepts her defeat. A few minutes later, I run into her again at a shop across the street as she is sharing the stresses of parenting a 10 year old child who is trying to figure out who he is and how he fits into the world. As soon as she sees me, she launches into the story of the day my phone made its way to Pashar Hill and how ashamed she feels, “Here, this white woman is here to teach and help and Dexroy thiefs her phone. I don’t know how to turn him against all of this evil.” Her head hangs low and her shoulders slouch forward. I’ve been working on getting bolder so I look her in the eyes and say, “You know what, for Dexroy and me, taking my phone was the very best thing that ever could have happened. Sure, it was hard to deal with the fact that he had violated my trust in him but he made it up. He came back to class, offered a sincere apology and has been the most improved student since. Honestly, I am able to teach him better now that we have lived through this together. In fact, I really love having Sprigger T as one of my students.” She looked at me curiously as if she couldn’t believe that someone had been able to get over being thiefed by someone they had welcomed into their home. I smiled, put my shoulders back and said, “Lawd, if people hadn’t forgiven me for all the chaos I have brought into the world, I wouldn’t be able to be standing right in front of you. We all deserve another chance.” I grabbed my soda off the counter and headed back to the school, knowing that the job ahead of me as a teacher is much more than the ABCs. The work of every person who participates in the life of a child can only begin to be explained as a continuous act of love, forgiveness and faith that everyone is capable of being the best noodle they can be.

the man. the myth. the noodle.

And you thought you had baggage....

Sometimes the thought of writing about everything that is in my mind can be a daunting task. I tend to doodle when I am in class, thinking or just listening to my Vincy sister, Justlyn, tell me how she is handling being a 16 year old who is navigating the rivers of life and love. I like this one and thought I would share. Bottom line, I have to believe that regardless of how I feel at times, my life is unfolding just as it should and that it takes both the joys and the challenges to make it beautiful.

I am sorry it is so small... I am really, really new to this idea of putting my doodles onto a computer. I will work on it so that just in case something else comes along I will be able to share. If anyone has the "know how" please share!

Just to translate- the words are:

"And you thought you had baggage..."

When I think of returning to the states I feel... unsure

I think my family will expect me to... go back to normal

I expect that my friends will be... supportive

Regarding money, I'm going to be...just fine

In terms of future plans, I hope to ... listen to my heart.